HANG MY HEAD AND CRY

A second historical foray for time-traveling Philadelphia office drudge Pat Monsella, whose move to the antebellum Virginia estate Magnolia that Shelby's arranged to leave her (By Blood Possessed, 1999) brings on (1) dreams that take her back to life on the estate over a century ago as seen through the eyes of slave's son Emancipation Jackson; (2) alternating narratives that toss the story back and forth between 1871 and the present; and (3) a skeleton unearthed from Miss Maggie's that brings the Reconstruction back to life in even more vividly unsettling ways.